Pump funds into regional court diversion programs

The Australian Institute of Criminology says court diversion programs need to be better resourced in regional areas to reduce the number of Indigenous juveniles in detention.

The institute will today give evidence to a Parliamentary inquiry into the high level of Indigenous young people in the criminal justice system.

Director Adam Tomison says the institute has found juveniles who participate in diversionary programs have less ongoing contact with the justice system.

"There's also evidence to show that incarceration on its own, without some sort of rehabilitation isn't going to achieve much regardless."

" I mean, while some kids need to be locked up because the offences they are committing are quite dangerous, the reality is it's probably a better path to go with diversion, to go with programs that assist in putting kids back on the right path."

Doctor Tomison also says a greater focus on diversionary programs is needed in rural and remote areas.

"A lot of the specialist responses that are being made through the judiciary at the moment across the country are often based in the larger urban environments."

"That means it is harder for rural remote kids who go off the tracks to access those diversionary measures which might actually assist them to keep on the straight and narrow, as it were."